A Single Moment Changes Everything
by unlikelyRLshipper
Summary: D/L. Post-ep to 4.19 I know, overdone but with a twist. Please see author's note for further warnings, but I will say this: SPOILERS FOR 5.25 PAY UP AND SEASON 6.


**Hi! Once again, thanks to everyone who read/read and reviewed my previous story.**

**OK - this one is a post ep to 4.19 Personal Foul, but it's also dealing with the events at the end of Season 5/beginning of Season 6. So, to sum up, there are spoilers covering all the way up to Season 6.**

**As well, I just want to warn you all that this is a strong 'T' rating, for sexual situations, but I promise that there is nothing graphic described.**

**I own nothing. All mistakes are my own.**

**Let's get on with the show!! Enjoy!!**

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**A Single Moment Changes Everything**

Danny Messer didn't know how long he sat at his breakfast bar, staring at the program from Ruben Sandoval's funeral while the rain continued to fall outside his windows. He was trying to process everything that was happening to him at the moment: Ruben was gone, Rikki was leaving, and he and Lindsay were probably finished. No matter what he did, he kept coming to the same singular conclusion: it was all his fault.

Wishing to drown his guilt and sorrows, he got up to get a beer when someone knocked on his door. Figuring it was likely Flack coming to check up on him, he decided to ignore it. His hand froze on the fridge handle when he heard a muffled "Dammit" come from the other side of the door. He recognized the voice immediately and rushed to the door, throwing it open and finding no one. Frantically searching the hallway, he just made out Lindsay's retreating figure.

"Lindsay, wait." He couldn't help the shocked tone. When she ended their phone call, Danny was almost certain that she wouldn't be coming over to talk. He had been hopeful earlier on when there was a knock at his door, but he was disappointed to see that it was only Rikki. Now as she walking back to the door, so many things ran through his mind to say to her.

_Thank you for coming._

_I'm sorry._

_Please don't leave me._

_I've fallen in love with you too._

However, something entirely different escaped his lips: "You're soaked."

"Rainwalk, remember? Though, I wasn't planning on having to walk through torrential downpours back to a closed subway station."

"Did you walk all the way here?"

"No. I took a cab."

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!"

"Danny, I'm here, I'm fine, so skip the lecture, OK?" Even though Danny didn't want to give in, he feared that if he pushed any further, Lindsay would turn around and leave again.

"Alright, but will you at least promise me that you won't do that again until we catch this psycho, and that next time, no matter what time it is, if you need a ride that badly you'll call me and I'll come get you?"

Lindsay nodded begrudgedly and stepped into his apartment, blatantly ignoring the butterflies that his concern had stirred up in her stomach. He locked the door and she removed her coat and when he turned to her, he could see that her clothes were just as drenched.

"OK, before we even open our mouths, you're changing."

"It's fine Danny."

"No. If you stay in those you're probably gonna get sick and with the amount of crap Mac's getting over the Cabbie Killer, we're gonna be working 'round the clock pretty soon. 'Sides, it'll only take 10 minutes." Lindsay looked confused. "You're drying your hair too."

Lindsay glared at him, but Danny couldn't have cared less at the moment. He pushed her towards his bedroom and bathroom, retrieving a towel from his linen closet on the way by and handing it to Lindsay. While he searched his drawers for some stuff to fit her, she stripped in the bathroom. As if by miracle, her bra and underwear were fairly dry, so she was happy that she wouldn't have to be completely naked under Danny's baggy clothes. She wrapped the towel around herself and waited for Danny.

He knocked on the door and opened it just enough to pass his arm through, the dry clothes gripped in his hand. She took them without a word. "Pass me your wet stuff and I'll throw them in the dryer. The hair dryer is still under the sink where you always leave it." He closed the door again and left her alone.

_What the hell am I doing here?_ she wordlessly asked the reflection in the mirror. She took the towel from around her body and wrung out her hair with it. Looking at the clothes, she saw that he had managed to find a pair of sweatpants she must have left at his place. When she saw the shirt on the bottom of the pile, she wanted to run out of his apartment right then and there.

Danny had this NYPD charity softball tournament t-shirt from a game before her time in New York, a shirt he loved because it reminded him of the blowout game they won against the FDNY. She found it one day and put it on, refusing to take it off when Danny asked. Instead, he had to chase her around his apartment and physically remove it from her himself. Ever since then, it had turned into a game between the two, where Lindsay would take it from him and Danny would have to figure out where she was hiding it this time. He had only taken it back a couple of days before Ruben's death when he had found it at her place hanging up in her closet. Though the shirt really didn't fit her all that well, it was the one thing that she always seemed to wear on her days off – whether it was at his place or hers.

Danny retook his place at the breakfast bar and listened to the hair dryer as he waited for Lindsay to come out. Giving her his charity softball jersey was a force of habit to Danny now as he was so used to seeing #28 (coincidentally her favourite number) and 'MESSER' across her back. He had even started to leave the shirt in obvious places so that she could take it and wear it. Danny knew that it seemed like such a childish game, but he couldn't deny how much he loved to see her walking around with his name in giant bold lettering across her back.

His happy reverie was broken up by the sound of her bare feet padding across his floor and he looked up as she sat down on a stool at the end of the breakfast bar, completely dry again. Silence enveloped the room until Danny dared to speak, his voice little more than a whisper.

"I meant what I said, it won't happen again. I don't ever want to hurt you like that again."

Lindsay smiled weakly. "I believe you Danny, but I don't think we can just pick up where we left off so easily – I mean, we both got really hurt in all this…"

"I know, I know, it's just we've only just started and I don't think we should give up on this."

"Danny, I'm not giving up on you and me, but we can't pretend like this never happened either. We gotta start fresh and rebuild the trust between us."

"OK, I can handle that."

"But can you really though? You can't keep bottling things up, or blaming yourself for all the bad things that happen to those you care about. I hate to tell you this, Danny, but you're only human. You make mistakes like the rest of us, but Ruben's death is _not_ your fault: you didn't pull the trigger, you guys were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In our work, we see that all the time. You couldn't have known what would happen, but I know that if you could have you would have taken the bullet for Ruben. Either way, someone would have ended up hurt, and there'd have been people left to deal with the aftermath."

With tears brimming in his eyes, Danny spoke again, looking straight at Lindsay. "How do you deal with that though? The aftermath?"

"Not by yourself, because it doesn't help. I tried that for a while, but it only made everything worse. The grief and guilt over surviving nearly swallowed me whole, but then I talked to my parents. It was really hard – probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done – but even after talking just that one time, the pain was lessened the smallest degree. So I continued to talk to my parents, and then a counsellor, again and again until I was able to manage the pain.

"Danny, I know it may not seem possible right now, but the pain will ease with time and by dealing with what you're feeling in a healthy and productive manner. You'll never forget the pain, but eventually it will be replaced with good memories. You're just gonna have to trust me on this." With that, she took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Danny couldn't believe what was happening. Here he was, the one who had screwed up their relationship and caused Lindsay so much pain while pushing her away and she was _still_ trying to help him out and ease _his_ pain.

"I really am sorry for how I've treated you these past few weeks. I've been so selfish that I never thought about what you were going through, seeing me struggle with all this by myself and getting pushed away for trying to be there for me. I really don't wanna lose you Lindsay."

"You haven't. We have both pushed each other away and chosen to deal with things all by ourselves. You toughed it out for longer than I've had to, so it's only kinda fair that I stick it out. I just think we need to work at this together, alright?"

"Yeah."

Danny slowly tugged on Lindsay's hand, gently pulling her off the stool as he stood up. He pulled her into a crushing hug, relieved that she was willing to give him another chance. As they pulled apart, they were face to face and when Danny moved to kiss her, she blurted out "I have to go to the bathroom" and scurried off. Watching the retreating MESSER 28, Danny mentally kicked himself. _We can't just go back to where we were before, Lindsay's right about that._ As he waited for her to hopefully return, he hoped he hadn't screwed up his chance to with her, again.

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Lindsay hadn't run off because she was scared of him trying to kiss her that quickly, but because of how close she was to giving in to him. More importantly, she ran off because she knew how desperately she wanted to give in and pretend like the past few weeks hadn't happened. She stared at herself in the mirror as an internal battle waged on within her.

Her head said that she should leave now and keep their relationship moving at a slow pace. It wanted her to remember the hurt that she had felt over the past few weeks and reminded her that she suspected something had gone on between Danny and Rikki. Something about the way he looked away when she called him out for dealing with Ruben's death on his own had caught her attention and she couldn't shake the feeling.

On the other hand, her heart said that she should pick up their relationship where they left off because it truly believed that Danny wouldn't hurt her like that ever again. Even considering her suspicions, her heart felt such a strong connection to Danny and it wanted to move on and look forward, not into past mistakes.

Lindsay couldn't decide which to listen to.

Should she stay or should she go?

Fight or flight?

It was then that Lindsay remembered something that Danny had told her as he drove them back to her parent's house after the trial.

She had asked him what made him fly out to Montana, and he said that he was looking at his mail and remembered Stella telling him that Lindsay wasn't doing so well, and despite being sent home early by Mac for being dead on his feet, he decided what to do. His exact words had been _"Go with your instincts."_

Lindsay recognized that that had been the right thing to do then and it seemed to be the right thing for now as well. So, she came up with a plan: she would ask Danny one single question, and after knowing his answer, she would let her instincts decide what to do next.

With one last look in the mirror, Lindsay exited the bathroom and found Danny pacing in his living room. She stopped across the room from him as he began to apologize.

"Lindsay, I'm so sorry. We agreed that we gotta go slow and rebuild our relationship and that was way too…"

Danny was cut off as he felt Lindsay's hand cover his mouth. He had failed to notice her crossing the room as he spoke because she was now standing in front of him and not across the room.

"Did you mean the other thing you said on the phone?" She removed her hand from his mouth to allow him to speak.

"That I miss you so much that I can't properly express it in words?"

Lindsay merely nodded and briefly broke eye contact. Danny's hand came under her chin and brought her eyes back up to his.

"Yes."

Lindsay searched his face for some hint that he was messing around with her, but she could see how serious he was. Slowly, she leaned up and forward to press her mouth to his in a soft kiss. She had finally decided what to do and she was rewarded for her decision by Danny's body reacting just as enthusiastically to the kiss. She deepened the kiss until Danny reluctantly pulled away. He couldn't speak, but his eyes conveyed his confusion.

Lindsay, who was feeling more comfortable than she had in some time, broke the silence.

"Danny, you've been fairly honest with me tonight, so in all fairness, I need to tell you something. I lied earlier on: you're not that hard to love."

Danny had no idea how to react to that, but it didn't matter as Lindsay recaptured his mouth in a hungry kiss. To say that Danny was confused would have been an understatement, but the feeling of Lindsay on him and what it was doing to him made all of the uncertainties fall away. Instead, he resigned to let Lindsay control where this was going to go.

Lindsay pushed Danny up against the breakfast bar and began to tug the wife beater over his head. She broke off the kiss just long enough to get it over his head before she started kissing him again, forgetting in her haste that she had wanted to take her shirt off too. She pulled at it, but Danny took over for her and effortlessly pulled it off her head. Her lips sought his out once again as her hands began to run all over his upper body. His hands ran up and down her spine, causing her to shiver.

Giving over to her passions, Lindsay began to walk them both toward his pool table. Danny could see where she was heading and he didn't think it was an appropriate end to what they had established that night. Although they had originally begun their relationship on the pool table, and as much as he loved that night, they needed to 'restart' somewhere more intimate.

Danny's hands left Lindsay's back and grabbed her hips to lift her from the ground as her legs locked around his waist, and he walked them to his bedroom. This new position gave Lindsay complete control over the kiss, and she decided to change the pace of the kiss to a more loving one, trying to convey her appreciation for being given control over what was happening between them and for his correct assumption that a quickie on the pool table wasn't the right way to go tonight.

Danny lowered Lindsay gently onto his bed, carefully crawling after her, ending up lying mostly on top of her. He was careful not to pin her under his weight, which allowed her to flip them over, giving her the advantage and control once again.

Straddling his waist, Lindsay began to remove her bra and as she started to pull it down her arms, Danny's hands came up to finish the process for her. He allowed his eyes to roam over the newly exposed skin before he locked eyes with her and whispered "You're beautiful."

She blushed at the comment and leaned forward to recapture his lips with a thank you kiss. Her hands undid the drawstring on his pant and after Danny lifted his hips to assist her, she shimmied down his body, taking his pants with her. Stepping off the bed, she removed her pants and underwear before rejoining him on the bed, both of them now completely naked. She straddled his waist once again, but instead of moving to kiss him, she locked her legs around him and slowly let her body fall to one side, taking Danny with her to complete the turn, which left Lindsay trapped under him.

Though he was slightly confused, he saw no reason to question the move because it was what Lindsay wanted. What Danny didn't know was that Lindsay loved the feeling of having Danny surrounding her, whether in a hug or in sleep or like now. It made her feel safe, no matter what was going on between them.

Danny took the opportunity to run his hands, in turn, up and down the sensitive skin of Lindsay's sides, causing her upper body to lift off the bed in a desperate need to recapture his mouth again. As Lindsay realized that Danny was still waiting for her to dictate what would happen next, she guided his hips to her own, hoping he understood what she wanted.

Not needing to be told twice, Danny entered her and remained still, staring at her pleasure-filled face. She gave him a slight nod and he began to move, the two quickly falling into a familiar rhythm. Their eyes remained locked together as her legs locked around his waist and her hands travelled all over his body, never satisfied to remain in only one place. With his arms occupied with holding his weight up, Danny lowered his head to place kisses all over her face and neck before he finally settled on her mouth again.

Feeling that they were both close to release, Lindsay took one of Danny's hands, allowing him to adjust his weight before guiding it between their bodies, silently instructing him on what she would like him to do next. When she went to remove her hand, Danny instead somewhat interlaced their fingers and moved their joined hands to where she wanted them.

Within seconds, both toppled over the edge, the only sounds in the room their heavy breathing as they tried to recover. Danny slipped out of her but moved to cradle her to him as he turned to lie on his back. Keeping Lindsay close, she came to a stop on her side, her head on his chest, her arm thrown across his stomach and her legs intertwined with his. He wrapped his arms around Lindsay and ran his hands up and down her arm and back. Feeling her ease into his embrace, Danny kissed her forehead as he pulled the sheet up over them. She kissed his chest and they both closed their eyes.

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The first thing that Danny noticed was that Lindsay was no longer in his arms, but he really couldn't figure out why.

"Linds?" His eyes fluttered open and he realized that he was in a hospital room – the beeping of the heart monitor became more prominent – and that it wasn't Lindsay in the chair beside him but his mother. The shootout came rushing back to him and his first instinct was to panic, but he never even had the time to ask the question.

"Relax, honey, Lindsay is fine. She's only got a couple of bruises from the impact and some minor cuts from the flying glass. The doctor's said you probably wouldn't wake up until mid-morning, so we traded a couple of hours ago so she could rest, change her clothes and be with Lucy. She should be back in about 10 minutes. What do you remember about tonight?"

"Well, I remember being at the bar and us raising a toast to Angell when gunshots rang out. I pushed Lindsay to the ground and then white hot pain tore through my body and everything went black. I vaguely remember waking up in the back of an ambulance and Linds pleading with me to stay awake, then begging me not to leave her. That's the last thing I remember before waking up here."

Danny decided it was best not to tell his mom that he had just dreamt about the night they had conceived Lucy, not only because it didn't matter to what had happened to him, but more importantly to save any awkwardness between them. He tried to move himself on the bed, but quickly noticed that something was different, like something didn't feel right, but before he could ask what happened to him, a flustered Lindsay with car seat in tow walked into the room, oblivious to him being awake.

"Thanks for staying with him, Sophia, I really needed the break and I was starting to…"

She broke off mid-sentence when she saw him smiling, albeit weakly, at her. The tears started almost immediately. Unable to take the tension in the room, he cracked a joke. "Montana, don't freak out, although I'm sure you already have."

Putting Lucy down in a nearby chair, Lindsay rushed over to her husband and kissed him soundly, relieved that he was awake and cracking offbeat (and inappropriate, given that phrase's original context) jokes. Sophia tried to give the couple some space as they embraced and spoke in hushed tones. She went to go check up on Lucy, surprised to see a pair of inquisitive blue eyes searching her new surroundings. Releasing her from the carrier, she lifted the baby into her arms and headed back towards the bed.

"Look who else is awake."

"She was asleep when I came in."

"Don't worry sweetheart, she probably just woke up trying to figure out what was going on, likely after hearing Danny's voice."

Sophia lowered the baby enough for Danny to kiss her forehead. Lucy cooed at her father as Danny reached out to tickle her belly, his hand becoming trapped as she gripped one finger tightly. Lindsay reached out to brush her daughter's cheek, sharing a look with Sophia. Sophia answered the unasked question with the slightest shake of her head and both quickly returned their attention to Lucy, unaware that Danny had seen the entire exchange.

"I'm gonna take Lucy back to your place and wait until Stella comes to relieve me. I'll be back after that to visit with your dad."

"OK Ma. Bye-bye Lucykins, I'll see you soon. You be good for Nonna and Auntie Stella, OK?" Lucy blinked at him in response. "Thanks for looking after her Ma."

"It's no trouble. I'll see you soon." She kissed Danny's forehead and went to rebuckled a nodding off Lucy into her car seat. She quickly hugged Lindsay, whispering "I'll tell them he's awake" before she took the car keys from Lindsay, picked up the car seat and left the room, leaving the newlyweds on their own.

Danny remembered his gut feeling and decided to ask her what had happened. "What's going on here Linds?"

She couldn't look him in the face and she made no moves to tell him.

"Look at me." When her eyes still didn't move to his, he grew more forceful.

"Look. At. Me. Monroe."

She finally did and he could see the tears threatening to burst from her eyes.

The doctor chose that moment to come into his room and shut the door. Lindsay's hand gripped his like a vice and she continued to watch him.

Danny knew in that instant that his life was about to change.

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**I didn't want to say this in the notes at the beginning so as to not give away the story any more than I already had to with the spoiler warning, but just to clarify: any similarities between my story and laurzz's amazing Wash My Tears Away are purely coincidental. This idea came to me shortly after Pay Up originally aired, and I adapted Danny's injuries to what the spoilers said would be happening to him.**

**Thanks for reading!!**


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